


Mirror, Mirror

by swordliliesandebony



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Body Swap, Chronic Pain, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, White Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 08:26:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13971174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordliliesandebony/pseuds/swordliliesandebony
Summary: [Written for Promptis Fanweek 2018 White Day Event. Prompt: Body Swap]Noctis and Prompto temporarily find themselves in one another's bodies thanks to a mysterious spell.  It's not quite as fun as Prompto might have hoped.





	Mirror, Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> This story is for [Promptis Fanweek 2018](https://promptis-fanweek.tumblr.com/)'s White Day event! It's...not really got anything at all to do with White Day, but I _did_ follow the 'body swap' prompt so it totally still counts, right?

Prompto is in pain.

It's not the same sort of pain he might be accustomed to after a battle. He's not bleeding, not even bruised. As a matter of fact, he came out of the whole ordeal relatively unscathed. All of them did. With the exception, of course, of the spell. What the hell kind of magic was that, anyway, that would leave him in this state?

Ignis and Gladio had both assumed, for a short time in any case, that they were pulling some sort of prank. It wasn't as though it would be the first time Prompto and Noctis had teamed up with some grand scheme to get a laugh or two out of confused faces and momentary panic. This, it was apparent after some careful questioning, was not that. 

And so Prompto sits in the tent, a harsh ache running from hip to ankle, entirely unrelated to any recent encounter. Entirely courtesy the fact that, despite his constant insistence of his identity, his body was presently that of the crown prince of Lucis.

It's a miracle, probably, or maybe just a good call that Ignis decided they would make an early day of things while they waited out the effects of the spell. Prompto is sure he wouldn't have been able to handle a day of traveling in his current state. And now, he's staring all big eyes and uncontained misery at Noct. It's unsettling. It's like looking in a mirror. Except the mirror doesn't reflect the way he's hunched over, wincing at the tight agony in the base of his spine. The mirror doesn't show the way he cringes whenever the dull throb of pain makes its descent down his leg. The mirror doesn't account for the fact that Prompto is not Prompto for the moment, to any outside appearance.

"Are you okay?" Noctis asks Prompto, and he asks it in Prompto's own voice, which is another one of those uncanny moments that makes the room feel a bit like it's spinning and the world as a whole feel largely dreamlike. Nightmare like, as it turns out.

Prompto doesn't respond immediately. There's a strange sort of guilt that comes with these sensations. He thinks about Noct, day to day. They walk for  _ miles  _ on some of them, if they're out picking up hunts or running errands. They don't often have the luxury of a proper shower or a healthy amount of rest. He tries to recall, has Noctis ever complained before? Has the occasional pained expression ever crossed his face, unspoken and disregarded? Prompto's mind is hazy, blank, and he's sure it's got nothing to do with the cursed magic.

"Been better, dude," the words, the cadence, they're all wrong. Prompto knows Noct's voice as well as he knows his own, but it sounds distorted and wrong coming from his own throat. It sounds  _ bizarre  _ speaking his own words, voicing his own thoughts. 

Noctis, admittedly, doesn't look quite so miserable. He's making a crawl on all fours to get closer to Prompto. It's a little bit clumsy, but not by much. They're just about the same height, a similar build… hell, for Noct this is probably a  _ relief _ . Prompto feels that strange wash of guilt again and his head sinks.

"It's not that bad, is it?" Noct is attempting some encouragement, though he seems aware that it's falling flat. He sits at Prompto's side and bumps their shoulders together and for a moment it almost feels like there's nothing strange at all. Prompto tries to pretend that this really is just a hit he hadn't noticed Noctis take. But he plays at the hem of the shorts and there's no sign of bruising. It's all muscle and bone in agony, not split skin, not recent bumps and scrapes.

"Is it always like this for you?" Prompto wants to come up with more tact, but he doesn't quite manage it, "the pain, I mean." Maybe it's not a good question to ask. Almost certainly, he doesn't  _ really  _ want to know the answer. He's pretty sure he already does, that he's maybe always had some sense. His hazy memories about Noct ever commenting, ever showing signs, are they simply a block he put in place? Was it just easier for him not to notice when his best friend—the guy he's unquestionably been long in love with—was in a constant sort of pain? He thinks he knows the answer to that too. A new sort of pain springs to life in his chest.

"Oh." Prompto watches his own face fall courtesy of Noctis and that strange spell and it makes his whole body feel tight and tense and terribly uncomfortable. Apparently his distaste for seeing Noct in any sort of distress carries over regardless of what body he's occupying. He wishes he could take back the question. Noctis is moving away now, crawling behind him. "Yeah, more or less. I mean, some days are worse than others, but it's never really not there."

Prompto nods and he tries not to look quite as upset as he feels over that fact. He doesn't like to think of Noct this way, just  _ living  _ with this sort of pain. It's not overwhelming, but it's impossible to ignore and it's entirely foreign to Prompto. He's been sore here and there, sure. He's had an injury or two that he's walked off, especially back before this trip, when he was spending more time running. But this is different, maybe in ways he can't entirely explain, but markedly and obviously so. And he hates it.

"Hey." He hears Noctis's—no, his own—voice close behind, just against his ear. A shiver rolls through his aching spine with the heat of breath on skin and for a moment he's able to ignore any other sensation. It's a strange sort of blessing. "It's not that bad. I mean, it sucks, but it's always been like that. You get used to it, learn how to ignore it." Noctis really does sound so casual about it all that Prompto is set off guard yet again.

He can't imagine just living with this, setting it aside, focusing on something else. He thinks about the time Noct spends napping in the car, or the mornings when waking him is like pulling teeth. He recalls sitting back on the couch in Noct's old apartment, playing a game or watching a movie, just to feel the weight of his head resting on his shoulder. And suddenly that seems so obvious, such an easy response, because hurting in this way is  _ exhausting. _

Prompto thinks about saying that, but his attention is shifted instead to the sudden warmth of hands against the small of his back. Noctis hikes up his shirt and he works his thumbs with an expert sort of care so they pinpoint the exact point of most pain. Of course, he would understand. Better than anyone, in fact. After the initial stiffening, the instinct to pull harshly away from the potential of more pain, he melts beneath the touch. It's soothing and easy and it has him sighing out some relief.

"Thought you hated being touched like this." Prompto blurts out the point before he can think better of it, but he hears laughter in response, feels it where Noct has his chin rested on his shoulder.

"Nobody really knows how to do it right. Ignis isn't bad, but it's kinda weird now, y'know? I don't really want  _ him _ touching me that way." Noctis continues kneading in, offering more pressure than Prompto ever would have assumed to be pleasant. But it  _ does  _ feel good. It—almost—feels like proper relief. The ache dulls beneath the touch and Prompto thinks he can understand, if this were something Noct had any real access to, how he could live with it. But that isn't the case. Ignis isn't in here night after night working the ache out of Noct's spine, crawling again so he can start working hands down his leg when he's finished there. Prompto is warm around the cheeks, flush for sure. He thinks for just a moment that it's a shame, really, that he's wearing Noct's face for the moment. It must be such an appealing look.

"Well, who  _ do  _ you want touching you?" It's another question that Prompto is sure he should have thought better than to ask, but he has the hint of a smile curling at his lips when he does and he can't bring himself to feel all that bad about it. Noctis smiles too, with Prompto's face of course, and there's a strange sort of fluttering in his belly. 

The sensation is more than odd, bordering on disconcerting. Prompto can't help but think of all the confidence he doesn't possess when he  _ does  _ possess his own body. He thinks about all of his worries over the thick dusting of freckles or the lopsided way his smile holds or how his face still looks all fat and round at the wrong angles. But when it's Noct in there, when it's someone  _ else  _ in possession of that personage… Prompto tries to brush the thoughts aside. It's far too much for him to consider along with everything else.

"Well." Noctis is acting—Prompto thinks, in any case, that it's an act—as though he's very well focused on the act of massaging down to his calf. He has a brow furrowed and he seems to be avoiding saying just what's on his mind for a moment or two. They're both fighting at smiles and Prompto, at least, at a fit of laughter. His muscles tense up a little and it makes his back ache again, but once more he's starting to understand how Noct learns to set that all aside. "I guess the bright side here is now you'll know exactly how."

There's something so endearing in the cautious way that Noctis speaks. Prompto couldn't mistake that voice for his own if he tried. It's in the low, slow way that the words form. Like he's taking a bit more thought than Prompto could ever manage to muster up before he's saying them. He still sounds like Noctis, and he's still capable of evoking all those butterflies, all those skipped heartbeats and warmed cheeks and it's  _ bizarre  _ as much as it is anything else.

"And you'd rather have me gettin' you all  _ loosened up  _ than Ignis?" 

"Do you really have to ask?" 

They both laugh at the exchange, the easy teasing that they fall into even when every other aspect is just the opposite. Prompto is still off-kilter, still left reeling over whatever magic has been clinging to them for the better part of the day. But with Noctis there, experiencing it just the same, it somehow doesn't feel so bad. With their jokes still landing, their talk still just as easy and natural as it's ever been, it's hard for Prompto to be too worried.

Ignis had, after all, been so certain that the spell would pass at any moment. Gladio had still looked at them with the sort of skepticism that said he was only going along with the idea that they weren't pulling one over on the two because Ignis was convinced otherwise. There was no great concern, not yet, and that made it easier.

Understanding Noct a little bit more? That makes it easier too, on the surface. In other ways, it's painfully, unspeakably hard. He still can't quite reconcile the fact that Noct is in such constant pain, that he's simply learned to live with it. And he can't quite look forward to the magic wearing down, when there's that part of him that understands this is the first time in a long time that Noctis hasn't been contending with the aches.

It's all too easy to get lost in those thoughts, and maybe all too obvious at the same time. When Noct's hands stop moving at his leg, there's a pause, where they're rearranged until they're close, until their breath is catching and mingling and Noct's forehead is pressed against his. It's just a moment, where Prompto's eyes are falling shut and the pain is forgotten in favor of plush lips and a flavor he can only accept as his own.

And then it all shifts.

It's subtle, maybe. It's the lifting of tight muscles and aching joints. It's a quiet jumping in his chest and through his body—really and truly  _ his  _ body again. It feels a little bit like missing a step, or like falling in a dream only to jerk awake beside your bed. It feels good, for a moment, with the sudden relief from whatever pain still lingered, any careful massaging be damned. Then it feels awful, because Prompto is looking in Noct's eyes and he knows what's hidden behind them.  

"Don't give me that face." Noctis smiles at him when they part and he nudges his shoulder again. "You know how to help now, so no sitting around feeling bad for me." Those words come out seriously and Noct's face hardens a little bit. That puts a jolt in Prompto's belly as well.

"You could've told me about it before, Noct…"

"Yeah, and then you'd be making that face and asking if I'm okay all the time. Ignis is bad enough about that, I don't need  _ you  _ treating me like I'm gonna break too." There's a certain shift in his tone, overly defensive and bordering on hurt and it makes Prompto's insides feel all harshly twisted.

"I don't think you're gonna break." he protests, "I just think you could, like,  _ take  _ a break now and then. You don't hafta push yourself so hard and—"

"—I don't wanna take a break. And I do have to push myself, whether you or I or anyone else likes it. Kinda comes with the king territory." Noctis's expression softens after he cuts Prompto off, when he sees the way his mouth parts but no words quite make their way out. "Listen. You're totally conscripted as my personal masseuse now, so don't look all sad and helpless." His hand travels and wraps around Prompto's and that's something of a good feeling, if not enough to wipe everything else away.

"It's just… not fair, y'know?"

"Yeah, I know." Noctis agrees Prompto's admittedly childish sentiment. "But there's no way around it. Trick is not thinking about it. So it's probably a good thing I have some  _ really _ nice distractions, huh?" Noctis squeezes Prompto's hand again and that fluttering returns to Prompto's chest when he leans close once more. He feels the soft brush of lips along his jaw and  _ that  _ is a proper distraction indeed.

"Yeah. Pretty good." He agrees. And it's easy to justify making a lot more of them, knowing what he does now.  

**Author's Note:**

> [catch me on tumblr](https://n0tempty.tumblr.com/)


End file.
